


Your Kingdom Come

by AWalkingParadox



Series: Pain and Words and Random Things [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Benten my sweet son, Flashbacks, Hi hello Frick you Sarah, Hurt/Comfort, I don’t know how to judge the level of angst in a fic, I love Rita tbh but I couldn’t include her in sadly, M/M, Some Fluff, THhe thought processes are a bit dark, TW warnings in the notes, Thanks for coming to my tedtalk, but she is great, i love my bois, i was moping, sorry bout my bad English, sorta angsty, tbis podcast is great, the world didn’t deserve you, you deserved the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 03:13:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18357452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AWalkingParadox/pseuds/AWalkingParadox
Summary: “Nightmare?” Nureyev asks, a whisper in the silence. Juno looks away. Those eyes, full of starlight, follow him and soften, and God, how he gazes at Juno, tender and full of love like Juno was his queen and worth the world. Juno drowns in it, emotions he hasn’t felt in a long time.





	Your Kingdom Come

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> Death  
> Descriptions of violence  
> Nightmares  
> Abuse  
> Blood  
> Self deprecating 
> 
> If there’s any more, please let me know!

There’s something different about the THEIA soul. It was like a drug, a special kind of high, a special kind of numb. It was different from the fancy, bright pills you can find in parties thrown by Kanagawas or the Triad or any of those rich people who prey on the weak of Hyperion City. It was different from the low-end ones in Oldtown, gained in back alley deals and never out in daylight, where finders keepers and losers are dead. The THEIA soul thrums in your veins, inhabiting every cell in your body in a brilliant surge of electricity. It cleanses you, purges all unwanted and all unneeded and all that destroys the potential for good. Then the THEIA is riptide, drags you out into the ocean, drags you down and deep no matter how hard and swim until you give in and let the waves take control. Because no matter how hard you struggle, you will give control to the THEIA soul. 

_Give up control to the THEIA soul._

Juno is walking the streets of Newtown, past the clean apartment buildings and Halcyon Park. He walks with cool, robotic movements, scanning the people who live there. Seeing their smiles; their faces.  
They’re happy. 

_Give up control to the THEIA soul._

Juno is in Mick’s apartment, blaster in hand. Rita is screaming. He feels his blaster recoil, hears the laser hit its mark. He hears Mick fall to the floor. He doesn’t hear him breathe. He can hear his own voice past the cotton in his ears.  
“No no no nonono—“

_Give up control._

Juno is thirty-two, standing atop the a skyscraper, almost touching the blue dome above. The wind whips at his hair and his gut is filled with mind numbing terror and he can’t move. He can’t hear the yelling or the honking of cars below from this height, and it’s December 24, and he has to go to Rita’s soon but he can’t seem to move because it shouldn’t be him who’s standing, who’s breathing, who’s _living_ —

_Give up control._

Juno’s twenty nine, sitting in a dismal room, bruises and cuts littered all over arms and a broken nose bleeding down his face and eyes fully of rage as he screams at the thug pointing a gun at his head. They look uneasy, never having met a kidnappee so willing to die and too stubborn to just outright say it and God, Juno is so _tired_. The thug cocks their gun and sets the mode to kill. 

_Give up control._

Juno is twenty five, curled up, and feeling, in every literal sense of the word, like a punching bag. Well, kicking bag too. You can’t really think the HCPD doesn’t kick their enemies when they’re down too, can you? He knows this dance well by now, and covers his head and neck, keeping his face tucked in and taking the blows by stride. One of them spits in disgust, and Juno can feel shame worm its way through his body. They laugh and yell and jeer and all he can do is close his eyes and wait. 

He lies there for a while, even after they leave. Really, he probably wouldn’t be able to stand up even if he had tried. Every possible part of him aches, and he’s pretty sure more than just his ribs are broken. It’s nightfall when he staggers to his feet. He swallows blood and heads to the nearest bar. 

_Give up control._

Juno is twenty-two, feeling the captain’s fist in his hair, and is getting sick of having his face repeatedly slammed into the table. His nose is broken(again) and bloody and a few of his teeth were probably knocked loose and he doesn’t want to be, but he’s _scared._ Captain Mete(oh how ironic) was a huge monster of an officer, sent in to deal with misconduct and misdemeanors. His head is yanked up again and the captain makes a mistake. They slam his head down once again, and just before it makes contact with the flat surface, Mete knocks the table back just a little bit, and he meets the sharp edge of the table with all the force of a rushing stampede.  
Juno _screams_. 

_Give up._

Juno is nineteen, and just came home from his first day on the job. HCPD was a hellhole of a place, meaning, he fit just right in. He enters the house and it is silent. No ballet music, no airy steps, no laughter or voice. Sarah sits on the couch, pill bottle in hand. Juno is _afraid._

She smiles, rambling about she thought he had stolen the bottle and how she just snapped and how it was _supposed to be you._ There’s blood on her hands. 

Juno doesn’t listen, he runs to the bedroom door and slams his fists against it, screaming and hoping and desperate. He screams for Benten, _Benten please Benten answer me Benzaiten!_ He can hear her laugh. He can hear every single damn sound, everything but _his._

_There is no answer._

_Give up._

_Give up._

_Broken plates._

_Give up._

_Silent house._

_Give up._

_Screaming till your voice is hoarse and your throat is raw and your children are at their wits end in terror and why won’t you just stop—_

_Give up._

_Sarah Steel. Mother._

_Give u—_

_ERROR. ERROR._

_Peter—_

_Give up. ERROR. Give. ERROR. USER. JUNO. STEEL. Give. Up. GIVE UP._

_Where the mind falters, the souls intercedes._

_The THEIA soul is back online. Welcome. UserJunoSteel._

Juno sits up with dizzying speed, eye throbbing to the beat of his heart. He can hear everything and he can hear nothing. The silence is somehow a weight pressing down, crushing him in its all encompassing terror. For a moment he’s somewhere, nowhere, dark and empty and terrifying and there’s screaming on the other side of that door and it’s so so cold and no one is here no one will help you give up—

Then there’s a warm hand in his and a pair of bright eyes in the darkness and for a moment, Juno’s mind is quiet.

“Juno?” Nureyev’s voice is soft, gentle, and warm. Warm. “Are you alright, love?” 

“M’fine. Go back to sleep Nureyev.” Juno can’t quite control the shakiness in his voice, not yet, and it’s too much to hope Nureyev wouldn’t notice. 

Nureyev shifts closer, sitting up with his shoulders slightly arched but poster still somehow perfect. Light filters in through blinds, pink and yellow and red and blue and basks him in it. He looks like a fallen angel, a regal king, like art. 

Juno, who has killed and hurt and bears the weight of the world on his shoulders, he doesn’t deserve him. 

“Nightmare?” Nureyev asks, a whisper in the silence. Juno looks away. Those eyes, full of starlight, follow him and soften, and God, how he gazes at Juno, tender and full of love like Juno was his queen and worth the world. Juno drowns in it, emotions he hasn’t felt in a long time. 

Juno feels something warm drip down his face, and oh. Oh. He makes a sound, something that’s half a sob and half a laugh, and the tears keep pouring down. He sinks in it, and the walls he’s worked so hard to build falls apart. 

“Oh Juno, darling.” Nureyev sighs, taking him in his arms and drawing him close. “Come here.” 

“I’m sorry.” Juno chokes out, apologizing for more increasingly wet shirt Nureyev will soon be having. Apologizing for..everything. “I’m sorry.” 

“Shh, it’s alright. Don’t apologize.” Nureyev tucks him in the crook of his neck, hand on his nape and the other one carding through his hair. He placed a kiss on Juno’s forehead. “You don’t have to apologize.”

Juno looks at him and in the dark of the night and the light of the city and the arms of Peter Nureyev, he could believe it. 

Juno is forty-one, and in the embrace of his king and the sounds of his city and the silence of his room, he utters words he hasn’t said in twenty one years. 

“I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> My boys—
> 
> Fun fact, I was writing this while I was in a sort of bad mood and sort of a Frick this mood so I guess this was kind of a vent but not really?
> 
>  
> 
> Sorry if the gramma isn’t correct, English isn’t exactly my first language. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!


End file.
